Less than one week after Boko Haram released a video threatening to kill the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, horror and bestiality were on display in a fresh video the group released at the weekend.
The video showed gunmen killing civilians lying face down in a dormitory in cold blood, and a leader saying they were being killed because they are “infidels” or non-believers.
According to the Associated Press (AP), there were so many corpses that the gunmen had difficulty stepping to reach bodies still twitching with life. Most of the victims appeared to be adult men.
“We have made sure the floor of this hall is turned red with blood, and this is how it is going to be in all future attacks and arrests of infidels,” the group leader said, in a message. “From now, killing, slaughtering, destructions and bombing will be our religious duty anywhere we invade,” he added.
The video released to journalists late Saturday comes two days after fleeing villagers reported that Boko Haram was rounding up elderly people and killing them in two schools in Gwoza, in Borno State.
The setting of the latest video appears to be a school, a long dormitory furnished with bunk beds, which the leader said was in Bama, a town 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Gwoza.
Previously, the militants had told residents of villages and towns that they would kill only enemies and wanted people to live peacefully in the area they have dubbed an Islamic caliphate, a large swath along the north-eastern border with Cameroon that they have controlled for more than three months.
In the video, the leader notes that the Prophet Mohammed advised that prisoners should be held, not killed, but said: “We felt this is not the right time for us to keep prisoners; that is why we will continue to see that the grounds are crimsoned with the flowing blood of prisoners.” He said some of those killed may call themselves Muslims, but are considered infidels by Boko Haram.
